For Whom it May Intrest, a Sub Count Analysis

[Natagosa-wyrmrest-accord]

About four years ago a Reddit user, who I’ll leave unnamed to protect their privacy, made a graph using machine learning to model the subscriber count using historical data. It shows the estimated number of World of Warcraft subscribers from 2005 to 2018. According to this graph, the subscriber count peaked at around 12 million in 2010 and declined to around 5.2 million in 2018.

I’ve always found that interesting, so I decided to do some math of my own to give us an up to date estimate, based on his work, to find out two things. One, when WoW may reach zero subscribers, and two, to get a feel for the current subscriber base. I then proceeded with my own anaysis, as such:

To extrapolate when the sub count may reach zero, based on the graph, we need to assume a linear trend and use a simple formula:

y = mx + b

Where y is the sub count, x is the year, m is the slope of the line, and b is the y-intercept.

Using the graph, we can estimate that m is about -0.5 million per year and b is about 12.5 million. So the formula becomes:

y = -0.5x + 12.5

To find when y is zero, we set y to zero and solve for x:

0 = -0.5x + 12.5
0.5x = 12.5
x = 12.5 / 0.5
x = 25

This means that x is 25 years after 2005, which is 2030. So according to this extrapolation, the sub count may reach zero in 2030.

However, this is a very rough estimate and it does not account for many factors that may affect the sub count, such as new expansions, changes in gameplay, player sentiment, competition from other games, etc. So please take this with a grain of salt.

It is also important to rember that, the subscriber count does not have to reach zero for the company to cease operations, in fact, it would be necessary to cease operations well ahead of such an event, or necesitate a complete change of business model.

To estimate the current sub count in 2023, we can use the same formula and plug in x as 18 (the difference between 2005 and 2023):

y = -0.5x + 12.5
y = -0.5(18) + 12.5
y = -9 + 12.5
y = 3.5

So according to this extrapolation, the sub count in 2023 may be around 3.5 million.

However, again, this is a very rough estimate and it does not account for many factors that may affect the sub count, such as new expansions, changes in gameplay, player sentiment, competition from other games, etc. So please take this with a grain of salt.

Original Machine Learning Graph: https:// i.redd.it/b0j1aag43j821.jpg

[Gearscore-eranikus]

Actually if you take a look at this calculations they kind of mirror the trend of they last showed the sub numbers. Still 3.5 million for an MMO it’s pretty great. Remember no King Rules forever so it was bound to happen at some point. I am too starting to slowly letting go of the game. But I am hoping HC WOW will draw me back in.

[Euphorazine-pagle]

Only Blizzard can really tell. You can’t make a reliable model to begin with. The best you can do is estimate based on google trends and other activity off social media, but that can only get you estimates at best.

Dragonflight sold less than 3.7m on launch, because they publicly stated it didn’t reach shadowlands numbers, and they posted shadowlands did 3.7m. But again, we can only speculate.

You can write a slope formula to match a graph of known data points, but that doesn’t really tell you much either. Just look at any new live service game. At launch the player counts are high, sharply drop, and then level out. If you wrote a formula during the drop period, it wouldn’t predict the level out range properly. That slope would change on a week to week basis as we got more data.